Well, the tower was also supposed to be temporary and yet, it’s still there 137 years later.

The last liberal government in Québec did that, but for a transit line (the REM).

They killed the only profitable commuter train line (DM) and literally gave it to a for profit entity (CDPQ) so they can transform it into a metro line. So now the public transit entities cannot compete with the private one, and even has to pay it royalties for something like 99 years.

I repeat, the public transit entity (ARTM) cannot compete against the for profit one, AND must pay it royalties for every passenger.

So now the ARTM doesn’t have the revenues from its defunct most popular commuter line, and must pay royalties on top of that. Public money, going straight into a for profit organization.

The new light rail line was not even working in 2023 and the public already had to pay $2.4 million to the CDPQ.

And those defending that model say that the CDPQ is a retirement investment firm that is profiting Quebecers, but their goal is still to make money. Unprofitable lines will be cut or never developed, even if needed.

They are literally privatizing public transit and some people are encouraging it saying that’s how we now have to build transit. It’s the way of the future!

Meanwhile the public transit entity says it’s not sure it can now maintain some of the other commuter lines and will have to look into cutting expenses and/or service.

Sigh…

EDIT: Source for the price the ARTM has to pay: https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/rem-hikes-per-passenger-payment-from-artm-even-before-it-starts-running

It depends what. Plastic recycling is mostly a scam/fraud and does not fix nor change much.

The industry has long known that plastics recycling is not economically or practically viable, the report shows. An internal 1986 report from the trade association the Vinyl Institute noted that “recycling cannot be considered a permanent solid waste solution [to plastics], as it merely prolongs the time until an item is disposed of”.

In 1989, the founding director of the Vinyl Institute told attendees of a trade conference: “Recycling cannot go on indefinitely, and does not solve the solid waste problem.”

Despite this knowledge, the Society of the Plastics Industry established the Plastics Recycling Foundation in 1984, bringing together petrochemical companies and bottlers, and launched a campaign focused on the sector’s commitment to recycling.

In 1988, the trade group rolled out the “chasing arrows” – the widely recognized symbol for recyclable plastic – and began using it on packaging. Experts have long said the symbol is highly misleading, and recently federal regulators have echoed their concerns.

Cited article, and the report’s source

Recycling paper, metal and glass will help and make a difference, keeping in mind that we need to use less in the first place. However plastic recycling is broken by default, pretty much everywhere.

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Four to five weeks of vacation is pretty standard in Europe and I don’t think it has anything to do with productivity. AFAIK, a German or Belgian would pretty much get the same amount of vacation. I’m in Montreal and the standard by law here is two weeks but my contract with a local employer is giving me four weeks. And, I’m still working when I’m working, even if I have some vacation time at some point?!

I took eight weeks this year. So you’re saying I (or a French person?) am not getting anything done when I work, because I took some extended vacation time?

I know this behaviour from big corporations is not exclusive to French companies but my type of work allows me to work from home and I’ve never seen a company despise WFH so much than my once French employer.

This was before the pandemic and I had the habit of working from home with my previous employer when I was sick. When I changed employer to work for a French hosting company in Montreal, they were adamantly against WFH. Even if sick. They preferred that you missed a day (or two, you know, take your time to recover!1!!) from work, taking “generous” sick days, than letting anyone from the lower ranks WFH. This was a pretty big red flag for me. Anyway their work culture was pretty toxic and I ended up quitting after a few months, but the “no work from home even if sick” policy is the first thing that hit me when I started there.

My current employer allows me to WFH and I’ve been looking a bit around to see if I could find something else, but they mostly all seem to require some sort of hybrid schedules at the office now, which obviously sucks.

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And those motocross. My family lives in a rural area with a rail trail. So to go there I often just cycle on the rail trail.

Unfortunately it’s also used by a local motocross group. They’re not supposed to but they obviously don’t give a fuck.

At least you can hear them coming from kilometres away. Which is interesting because the police or whoever is supposed to enforce “bicycles only” on that bike path doesn’t seem to hear them. Nor see the very obvious tracks.

The most insulting part is that they close the path in fall, winter and spring because they don’t want CYCLISTS to damage the bike path, yet there’s assholes on motocross driving on it.

I have no idea. Electricity, heat and hot water are included in my rent.

So, where is Saddam Hussein?

There’s very little meat in these gym mats.

And I’m sure they already have a team filtering through that crap. Poor them.

That reminds me that the mayor of Paris decided to just quit that shit hole last year.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/27/paris-mayor-anne-hidalgo-quits-x-calling-social-media-site-a-gigantic-global-sewer

It also reminds me that lots of media sites won’t allow comments on their YouTube videos or on some of their articles because they can predict exactly the kind of BS they are going to get, and nobody from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association is saying that it’s unreasonable and limiting people’s freedom of expression.

They can still reach the mayor’s office through official channels. They can write open letters in the media. They have multiple other ways to make their shitty opinions heard. X formally known as Twitter is not fundamental to freedom of expression.

And those same people were thriving and doing much better when Trump was president?

When I saw the title through my news feed, I knew exactly what it was about.

And it’s totally ridiculous and unrealistic to expect her to allow every right wing asshole on X formally known as Twitter to send her heinous messages and ad hominem. She should just quit that cesspool.

I went there for a while and every fucking post that I tried to make, or follow, within my “community” and followers, ended up being flooded by hateful messages, the worst ones being from paying accounts and highlighted by Twitter itself. I really liked the small community of people that were progressives and pro-cycling on Twitter, for Montreal. But every time they comment or if you dare reply something nice, you or them will get flooded by loads of insulting, hateful, shitty replies. I gave up. It’s untenable.

If you spend just a few minutes through her posts and their replies, you can see exactly why some of them are being blocked. The people criticizing her are unrealistic. They are not receiving personal threats and insults as “messages from their constituents”.

Again, I think she should just quit the cesspool that is X formally known as Twitter. There is nothing to gain there.

TBF, the type of vehicle doesn’t really matter. If you want to murder someone, do it with a car and just claim you didn’t see the person, that you are shocked, and it’s just an “accident”. Nobody will question this.

Yeah, I can understand as I have been car free for over 20 years. At least this route does have a baggage car allowing you to do this. It would be impossible in the Corridor as they don’t take baggage anymore.

With VIA you can bring a bike and lots of checked baggage with you between Toronto and Vancouver, because they have a baggage car and serve smaller communities that need it. But this is not possible between Windsor and Quebec City.

I can’t even bring a bike with me from Montreal to Drummondville, even if their new trains have bike racks. And they can’t say when it’s gonna be possible.

I also sometimes have no choice but to use VIA Rail, and that’s why I’m so critical of them.

Good luck. Bring snacks and water with you, just in case.

They are pretty rare. However, he doesn’t seem that much aware.

As you know, since we lost Greyhound [bus service], people have very few passenger transportation options in northern B.C. and right across rural Canada.

Not everyone can afford the cost of flying across the country, and so we need to have a better balance between the need to ship goods, which is a very real need and connected to the health of our economy, and the need to transport passengers and provide people with safe, convenient, affordable and low carbon transportation options.

AFAIK flying across the country is cheaper than taking a train, priority over freight or not. A flight from Vancouver to Toronto take less than 5 hours, there are daily departures, and is around $150 depending on the transporter. A train from Vancouver to Toronto is $685, takes days, and only has two departures a week. And if you plan a month in advance, it’s “only” $514.

From my point of view, nobody really wants to cross the country on a train, except those doing it for the trip itself. To me, what is lacking is, as he stated, intercity services. Going from one city to another, without a car, is a horrible experience in Canada right now. I’m not even talking about rural places, like he dares. Just cities. Even if we give priority to VIA’s trains, they are still going to require planning your trip weeks in advance to get anything other than exorbitant prices. They will still only have a few departures a day, or a week.

It’s a very good first step to prioritize passenger trains, but it’s going to take much more than that!

The country, especially the central and western parts, was populated by the railways. When looking at old railway maps, it’s just fascinating to see how every little town and village was connected by a rail line.

It’s understandable that through the years the network will shrink and consolidate, but passenger trains have not been consolidated, they’ve been butchered. Freight is king. Even old abandoned railways can’t be converted to bike paths because freight companies, while not using the line, will also not relinquish it. The government gives freight companies like CN and CP(KC) everything they want, and even lowers safety standards and regulations so those companies can make even more profit. Yet, VIA Rail and their passengers have been reduced and cut to pathetic levels.

I doubt that any minister have to take a train on a regular basis or they would be painfully aware of how bad it is. Just the airline model is making me fume a little bit every time that I board a VIA train. VIA (and Amtrak) prefers to make passengers form a long line in the station and insists on scanning every ticket before even being allowed on the platform, then checks tickets AGAIN once the train is moving. I wish they would do like in Europe; allow passengers to board like a metro, and just validate tickets once in the train.

It’s all sad and disappointing that we can’t have ‘normal’ intercity services. Even coaches are bad. The message from our leaders, whether it’s provincial (in my case), or federal, is “get a car, loser”. But get an EV! You know, for the environment,

Uh, VIA Rail is already kind of nationalized?! If you’re talking about the rail network, one can only dream! But those are billion dollar companies so I doubt any minister would dare to do that.

Aside from nationalizing the network though, we could also force freight companies to let passenger trains go before cargo and merchandise.